Heather Jo Flores

Permaculture Womens Guild

By Heather Jo Flores Tips for cloudy skies tomato gardeners In a foggy, temperate climate, most of us know the drill: Start seeds indoors in early spring and use grow lights if you have ’em. Plant in fertile soil with plenty of space in mid-June. Trellis, water, prune and pray and maybe, just maybe, get some ripened homegrown tomatoes before the rains come again in September, when what started out as a savory dream of salsa and gazpacho turns into six pounds of green tomatoes topped with powdery mildew and hopeful plans for next year. But there’s hope! Tomatoes are…

Permaculture Womens Guild

By Heather Jo Flores a little ingenuity goes a long way If you’re a gardener and you feel like melons are easy to grow, please, message me! I want to learn your methods. I have found this crop to be one of the most challenging of annual vegetables. If it were anything else, I’d probably have given up by now. But nothing can replace the sweet sticky pleasure of a summer afternoon spent eating a perfectly ripe garden-fresh melon. I tried a dozen different varieties of melons, and grew them in twice as many ways, and sometimes all I got was…

Permaculture Womens Guild

There are plenty of good reasons to develop a skill set for growing food in small spaces. By Heather Jo Flores There are plenty of good reasons to develop a skill set for growing food in small spaces. Maybe you only have a tiny balcony with sun for half the day? Or a hot, paved driveway but no other yard? Perhaps you’re in student housing? Or maybe it’s more of a time constraint: You’d like to have an expansive garden but you really only want to work on it for an hour a week. Or perhaps you just don’t really eat…

Permaculture Womens Guild

Why you should be growing marigolds in your permaculture garden By Heather Jo Flores What do you think of when you hear the word marigold? Maybe you imagine those 6-inch-high borders of orange and yellow flowers that your grandmother planted around her rose beds. Did she buy them by the flat, already blooming? Maybe she knew they helped repel insects from the roses. Or maybe she just liked the fact that they were so easy to grow, drought tolerant and cold-hardy, blooming late into the fall, hanging tough through heavy rains to cheer up even the soggiest gardener. When I…

Permaculture Womens Guild

By HeatherJo Flores Gazpacho is often called a “cold soup” by gringos, but around here, it’s served over ice as an afternoon drink on hot summer days. Delicious and refreshing! Here is a quick rundown of everything you will need to make homegrown gazpacho, followed by a recipe I learned from a Native Andalusian chef. The varietal recommendations are my own, based on my experience and the flavors that I find work best. Tomatoes.Any tomatoes will do but for gazpacho I prefer Roma, Beefsteak and Ox-heart varieties. Or try a combination of San Marzano, Brandywine and any color Ox-heart. Black…

Permaculture Womens Guild

A baker’s dozen of easy to grow and disease-resistant perennial hedge plants. By Heather Jo Flores No garden is complete without a yummy patch of edible, perennial shrubbery! Even a small garden can squeeze in a few brambles, berries or ‘chokes. To create a low-maintenance food forest with a year-round harvest and multiple layers of plants, a mid-sized perennial understory is an essential piece of the design. Shrubs connect the canopy to the ground and create habitats for birds and insects. The shrub layer also shelters smaller plants and creates boundaries and microclimates. ​I picked a baker’s dozen of the best…

Permaculture Womens Guild

By Heather Jo Flores Most basic pruning, especially on young trees that haven’t been previously damaged or badly pruned, can be done by anyone with some basic information Should I Stay or Should I Go? The main reason for fruit tree pruning is to increase air circulation, which protects against insect infestation and disease. An air-congested tree will also stop fruiting, so it generally makes sense to remove anything that is growing toward the center for a better flow. But before you start hacking branches, try this simple system for figuring out what to cut and why. Follow the Leaders…